" Paramount is thinking epic and apocalyptic these days. Over the last week, I met up with one industry insider who tipped me off about a pair of projects the studio is calling "priorities."

The first you already know about: World War Z by Quantum of Solace's Marc Forster and written by J. Michael Straczynski. Word is, production offices are set up and Forster is in early pre-production. Based on a novel by Max Brooks, it's a detailed tale in which a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a zombie war that obliterated every country on the map.

The other project is one we haven't heard about since MTV picked up the rights in 2005: An adaptation of Dark Horse Comics' Damn Nation.

Here's a synopsis from the publisher: Imagine a United States shut off from the world by concrete barricades and barbed wire-not because of what might get in, but what might get out. A vampire plague has spread from sea to shining sea and when a small holdout of scientists trapped outside of Buffalo, N.Y. discover a cure, it's up to a Special Ops team from the President's current offices in London to go in and get it. Yet, not everyone in the world wants to see America back in the saddle again...

Andrew Cosby penned the comic and, at the time the rights were picked up, writing the screenplay. Paramount owns distribution rights to Damn Nation and, according to my source, they're pushing it to the top of their to-do list. "